contemplating digital orality

Daft, R. L., and R. H. Lengel. (1984). “Information Richness – a New Approach to Managerial Behavior and Organizational Design.” Research in Organizational Behavior 6 : 191-233.

Information Richness is the foundation of media richness theory, which I addressed in a September 2009 post and again in March 2010. While those two posts (particularly the first one) provide a good overview of the theory, I want to add a few points directly from the 1984 article that is the genesis for this topic.

The article looks at communication in the workplace and discusses models of organizational communication and how organizations meet the need for certain types/methods of communication for specific purposes. However, the root of the theory is not specific to workplace or hierarchical communication, but rather regards the differences in the way information is received from different communication methods. Read the rest of this entry »

SIPT explicitly assumes that individuals are motivated to form impressions and develop relationships of some kind, no matter what medium they are using (394).

Walther, Joseph B., Leslie A. Baxter, and Dawn O. Braithewaite. “Social Information Processing Theory.” Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perspectives. Eds. Baxter, Leslie A. and Dawn O. Braithewaite. Thousand Oaks, CA US: Sage Publications, Inc, 2008. 391-404.

Earlier this year, I touched on the Social Information Processing Perspective (SIPP). However, this post delves a bit more into this theory of Joseph Walther.

In this 2008 article (Chapter), Walther references his 1992 Social information Processing Theory (SIPT) of Computer-Mediated-Communication (CMC) with special focus on the development of relationships online. “The SIPT of CMC explains how people get to know one another online, without nonverbal cues, and how they develop and manage relationships in the computer-mediated environment (Walther, 1992)” (391). Because the relationships he discusses are largely based on textual interaction, this work is not directly relevant to my research on online video conversation. However, it is not without relevance and worth. Read the rest of this entry »

Short, J. A. Effects of Medium of Communication on Experimental Negotiation. Human Relations. 27 3 (1974): 225-34

This 1974 article details a study that John Short conducted to determine the effects of communication medium on experimental negotiation. While it was written over 35 years ago, it is foundational to social presence theory that Short later developed. The study was conducted due to what Short saw as a move to decentralize business and a greater difficulty of having face-to-face (FtF) communication, an occurrence far more relevant to the globalization of business and education in our current era. Read the rest of this entry »

The Sophistic performance of electronic rhetoric has arrived. …It is on computers. … and it is on television. (137)

Welch, Kathleen E. Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. The MIT Press, 1999.

In this fifth Chapter of Electric Rhetoric, Technologies of Electric Rhetoric, Welch elaborates on her idea of an electric rhetoric–stemming from an Ongian tie to secondary orality, which exists in, and due to, the electronic era. Given the ubiquity of computer use, Welch calls for a digital literacy not only for anyone wanting to enter the workplace, but also for anyone who wants to fully experience that richness that has been brought about by new media and our current state of technology. Read the rest of this entry »

I contend that we do not now know Isocrates’ rhetorical theories well enough, because we have not understood classical Greek rhetoric and writing practices for our electrified time. (33)

Welch, Kathleen E. Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. The MIT Press, 1999.

In this Chapter 2 of Electric Rhetoric, Welch argues that the classical rhetoric set forth by interpretations of Aristotle and Plato is “categorical and highly ordered” (p. 33) and does not account for our “electrified time.” While it may be categorical and ordered, that helps for classification. She also contends that Isocrates’ rhetoric is by nature misogynistic and exclusionist. While this may be true, that was an unfortunate condition of the period. Applied today, Aristotelian and Platonic rhetorical theory need not be exclusionist or misogynist. This is a point Welch understands well, as she goes to great lengths to vindicate Isocrates’ rhetoric and find application for it in the “next rhetoric” (Chapter 4) that she proposes.

Read the rest of this entry »